Its repertoire consists mainly of puppetry-based adaptations of international literature, as well as children's entertainment.

[2] It was incarnated in its current form in 1953, when the Communist government's Ministry of Culture and National Heritage granted it a subsidy and the status of a professional stage.

In 1977, the theatre began permitting non-Polish entrants and restyled the event as the International Festival of Puppeteers, leading to the participation of entrants from across Europe, most notably German puppeteer Albrecht Roser.

Recent theatre directors have also permitted non-Polish puppeteers to perform directly at the Bialystok.

In the 1990s, the BPT, under the lead of playwright Wojciech Szelachowski, helped further modernize Polish puppet theatre by launching postmodernist, sometimes sans-puppet performances, several of which were inspired by the post-WW1 Dada art movement.